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18 Dec 08

Why Are The Schools So Bad: Educators versus Education

A lot of people have been wondering, since about the Great Depression, why are American
public schools so bad?

Well, I’ve got about 100,000 words on the Internet trying to answer this question.
But let me give you the two-word answer: American educators.

Sure, you can wade for weeks through their sophistries
and excuses, but the final answer will still be the same. Our educators -- and I mean the Ph.D.’s at the top -- are
responsible for creating our school system. QED: if the schools are lousy, the educators are the culprits.

Would
you like a little background? Please look at “30: The War Against Reading” on Improve-Education.org. This piece
takes about 20 minutes, but then you’ll have a sense of how our schools created 50 million functional illiterates. Toward
the end, this essay’s focus broadens to include math -- which is also a terrible mess -- and the general war waged by
our educators against facts and knowledge.

Recently I've realized that the usual remedies pursued by educational
reformers will not work. Typically, reformers suggest new policies or they point to some example which they consider “best
practice.” Note that in both cases the reformers are assuming that the educators will listen. They won’t. They
are the Great American Dinosaur, and change is not in their DNA.

I think now that the obvious solution is that
we must deconstruct and discard all of their favorite bad ideas, particularly in reading and math instruction. I’ve
just put a funny little video on YouTube titled “Why Don’t The Public Schools Do A Better Job?” This takes only three minutes and will give you a good sense of the education wars at this time. Here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN-dY1HBqsQ

I’ll be writing a lot about these proposals, but for the moment I just want to paint a broad
outline and to invite you to join me in my crusade to improve American education. Please contact me for a quote, an article,
or a discussion of my next projects. I’m Bruce Price and I can be reached at Word-Wise Education, 757-455-5020. And
I urge you, especially if you are an editor, publisher or talk show host, to devote a few more minutes each week to education.
This is the big battle.